A food blog from everywhere!

Lyon: Cooking at L’Atelier des Chefs

Perhaps one little-known tidbit about me is that nobody ever taught me to cook. I’ve never been much impressed b my parents’ cooking, so I took over the kitchen myself by the end of my middle school years. My cooking skills are a product of cooking shows, cookbooks, food blogs, and just self-experimentation. I remember the first dish that I’d ever made from scratch was a cheese soup from allrecipes.com. Not a great resource for serious cooks, I now realize, but back then I was pretty proud of that processed-cheese soup.

Well, during my one-week stay in Lyon I came upon L’Atelier des Chefs, a cooking school offering 30 min – 1.5 hr long classes for non-professionals. Since I was there and wasn’t in a hurry to do anything and the price wasn’t too steep, I decided to give the tart-making class a go.

Reserving a spot was really easy. All I had to do was go on their website, find the course I want, and make my reservation. No need to pay until I got there the next day.

The school is pretty conveniently located in Presqu’ile, about a five minute trek from the Musee des Beaux-Arts. There was a little cooking gadgets store up front and the kitchens and stuff were at the back. Getting there, I was definitely pretty nervous at first cause it was my first time in a non-touristy environment where I’ll HAVE to rely on my French abilities! No falling back on English if I don’t understand something.

Because I signed up for a class on a weekday morning, there were only 2 other people with me: a 50ish lady and a 12ish boy. A kid, me, and a graying lady; basically we hit all the age groups. The chef ushered us into the kitchen, a big professional kitchen, and handed us aprons and placed us at our stations. He’d already laid out all the ingredients and utensils beforehand, so basically he instructed and demonstrated and we did the tasks needed. It was pretty fun, although a bit quiet once the chef stopped talking cause, well, we three highly diverse people weren’t the most talkative bunch. But I was pretty content just being able to understand everything, and sort of surprised too!

The whole course took about an hour, and afterward they packed up the food for us to take home. It was a pretty enjoyable way to spend the morning, and I created some nice tarts for lunch, but I have to say though, I think I could have learned the same stuff from a cooking show or a book. Sure, it wouldn’t be the same as having someone guide you, but it sure would be a lot cheaper!

Mix together flour, parmesan, a pinch of salt and butter in a medium-sized bowl until well-incorporated. Then add egg and roll into dough-like ball. Roll out on a lightly floured surface and then slap between two pieces of parchment paper. Stick into the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Once done, cut out eight disks of tart crust using any hollow round-rimmed object (e.g. cookie cutter, a glass). Set aside to let cool.

Dice eggplant and onions. Chop up fresh herbs and set aside.

In a very hot pan, heat 3 tsp olive oil. Add onions, eggplant, a pinch of salt and saute for a min, then add 5 tsp water and cover. Once there’s no more water, let the eggplants sweat out their juices. Once the veggies stick a bit to the pan, stir them a bit and then add coriander, basil, and any spices you feel like adding (e.g. cumin maybe? Or curry? Not really necessary but if you want an extra kick, there you go)

Prepare the vinaigrette by mixing 10 tsp olive oil, the juice of one lime, and a pinch of salt.